Yale Falls at Princeton, 3-1

After a come-from-behind victory in set one, the Bulldogs
dropped the next three in a loss at Princeton on Saturday
afternoon. Kendall
Polan continued her impressive freshman season with 29 assists,
10 kills and seven digs while hitting .348 for the match for Yale,
which fell to 8-7 overall and 2-2 in the Ivy League.

The Tigers (8-6, 3-0 Ivy) struggled with hitting during the
first two sets, but found their form in the final two.
Princeton hit .400 as a team in set three – a 25-20 win
– and .395 in the final set, a 25-21 victory.

Yale fell behind 9-3 in the first set, but fought back to tie
the match at 10 thanks to three kills from Katie
Cordell and two from Bridget
Hearst. With the game tied at 20, Princeton scored three
straight points and forced a Yale timeout. Erica Reetz (6
kills, 7 digs) began a 5-0 run with a kill to turn a 23-20 deficit
to a set victory to start the match.

Cordell finished with a team-high 15 kills, nine digs and a .343
hitting percentage for the Bulldogs.

The Bulldogs fell behind 9-5 in the second set, but bounced back
with five unanswered points with two kills each from Polan and Haley
Wessels, who posted 11 kills with a .429 hitting percentage in
the match. Cordell capped the run with a service ace.

Princeton responded with nine of the next 11 points. The
Bulldogs would get no closer than three points the rest of the set,
which was ended by a kill from Liz McStravick, who had nine kills
and hit .471 for the match.

Down 13-11 in the third set, Cordell exploded. Yale scored
six of the next eight points and benefited from Cordell's five
kills during that stretch.

Princeton's Lydia Rudnick, who produced a match-best 16 kills,
matched Cordell. The Tigers went on a 6-1 run
with the help of four Rudnick kills and never trailed again in the
set.

Rudnick capped a 12-6 run to begin the fourth set. Kills
from Gina Finke
and Hearst, and a Princeton error helped Yale respond, but Rudnick
fired one more kill to stop the Bulldogs' rally.

McHaney
Carter struck her fourth kill of the set to make the score
24-21. Despite 19 kills and a .341 team hitting percentage in
the fourth set, Princeton recorded the next point to take the set
and the match.

After dropping two matches on the road over the weekend, Yale
returns to the John J. Lee Amphitheater on Friday to host Cornell
at 7 p.m. The Big Red dropped a five-set match at Dartmouth
on Friday, fell to 3-9 overall (1-2 in the Ivy League), and were
scheduled to face Harvard on Saturday.